Device for separating raisins from foreign matter



y 1929- w. STONER I 1,711,817

DEVICE Fon SEPARATING RAI SIb IS FROM FOREIGN MATTER Filed Feb. 23, 1927 Patented May 7, 1929.

UNITED STATES WILLIAM STONER, OF FRESNO, CALIFORNIA.

' DEVICE FOR SEPARATING RAISINS FROM FOREIGN MATTER.

Application filed February 23, 1927. Serial No. 170,111.

ture and packing of raisins, that when the raisins are brought to the packing house berries, are sorted out of the general mass offrom the vineyards, it is frequentlytrue-that there are many small stones and foreign substances therein, such as nails, pieces of wood, and metal box corners. usually. run over a screen or shaker, which removes the. larger stones, sticks, nails and substances, and frequently magnets areplaced in the path of travel of the raisin stock to pick out the metal which may be attracted thereto, but there yet remains in the raisins some pieces of metal and stones the approximate size of the raisins, and smaller, and imperfect raisins produced from immature grapes which are termed in the trade red berries, these red berries being hard and unfit for food. Such foreign matter not only injuresthe machinery through which the raisins are required to pass, but the red berries, stones and foreign material remaining in the commercial pack of raisins diminish the value of raisins as a food product. It has heretoforebeen the practice to run raisins which contain many small stones or nails through a sluice box and bath. When sent through the sluice box the baffles will catch the nails and stones and the raisins will be floated over the baflles, and in the baththe good raisins sink to the bottom and the red berries willfloa't on the top where they can be removed. But by theme of the sluice box orthe bath it is necessary to re-dry the raisins. This is not only expensive but requires considerable time, and when it is necessary to manufac ture raisins in a hurry, these steps are omitted. When they are subjected to the water treatment it leaves the raisins sticky and gummy and in an inferior class to those which have not been subjected to the water process.

In the device which I have invented the stones and other foreign matter, and red raisins. The object of my device is to separate raisins from foreign matter and from .red berries. J p

Y Thisobject and other objects hereinafter referred toare accomplished bymeans of a 'devicehereinafter described and illustrated Theraisin stock is e in the accompanying drawing, in which Flgs. 1, 2, 3 are perspective views of different forms of rollers which may be used in my device. Fig. 4 isa side view of my device partly in section. Fig. 5 is a detail View of the adjustable partition. Fig. 6 shows screw means for adjusting the proximity of the rollers. V i

In the drawing 7 is a roller in which the periphery is covered with a yielding mate rial such as soft rubber, or a gelatine mixture such as is commonly used on rollers for mking printing presses, or it may be formed of other yielding material such as soft leather. Working opposite is a roller 8 composed of hard substances such as metal, wood or other equivalent. These rollers are adapted to rotate on their axes and are set so the peripheries are quite near together. In the drawing 9 is abeam which carries the rollers described, 9 being the frame supporting beams '9, 10 representing the bearing in I which the axle 11 of the hard roller 8,is carried, and 12 the bearing which carries the axle 13 of thesoft roller 7 Bearing 12 is attached to a slide 21 on beam 9, and the adjustment of the soft roller in relation to the hard roller is made by screw 14. Said screw 14 operates through a female screw 15, the female screw being attached to the frame 9an'd the bearing 12 being attached by a ball and socket joint 22 to the end of screw 1'4. It will be noted that by turning the screw 14 in one direction it will position the roller 7 towards the rigid roller 8, and by turning it in the opposite directionit will position the soft roller away from the rigid roller. This turning may be done by a handle 1 1 It is here noted that the bearings and peripheries adjacent to each other when the two rollers are assembled for operative rela- 131011" will turn 1n a downward direction. Directly between the two rollers and under them, I have placeda vertical partition 24;,

the purpose of-thc partition beingto guide the good raisins which fall on one sidein a different direction from the stones andhard raisins or red berries which fall on the opposite side. The top edge of the partition 24; should be very thin and the top line of said partition should be approximately parallel with the shafts which carry the rollers. The shafts of the rollers should be adjusted parallel to each other. Partition 24 should be constructed so that it can be adjusted vertically and laterally, and it should be held rigidly in the position to which it has been adjusted. l! or this purpose I have formed extensions of wings on the lower end of the partition, the wings lmvingslots 71 therein. A support 72 is provided for each wing, 'the support being a part ofthe frame 9. Pivotal members 7 5 are attached to the wall 72 and extendithrough the'slots '71 so that the partition 24 can be swung on a radius from the pivots 5, "and the members and partition attached can be moved ho izontally on the pivots the limits "of saidslots. By this devicethe 'lJdYill." tion can be adjusted approximately to the position desired, and by means of winged nuts '76 the wings can be clamped to the pivotsin the position desired. For thepur- .poseofmaking finer adjustments the parti- 'tion 24 is laterally divided into two parts, 24 1 and 24*, which are hinged jtogether, and by means of a threaded adjustingscrew 77, operating through a, female screw 78, the upper portion 24 of the partition can be moved forward or back as desired. Screw 77 should beattachedto the upper portion 24,througlr a slot 80. This slot-zpermitsthe partition to be adjusted vertically and at'the adjustment desired the screw is clamped to the partition with nut '81.

It is here noted that when a conglomeration of'stones, mails and other foreign substances andra-isinsare passed between said rollers when the rollers are being rotated, the-soft raisins will adhere to the hard roller, and thestones, nails and red berries or hard raisins, being harder than -the yieldingroller, will sink into the soft yielding material on theperiphery of roller 7 while bein aassed between said rollers and then be carried by this device beyond the vertical dividing line between the two rollers at which line thetop edge of 'the partition 25 is positioned. The raisins passedthrough said rollers are thus separated, the soft pliable raisins following the'hard roller beyond said dividing line and dropping on the side of partition 24* on which the hardrolleris=positioned and thestones and red berries, nails, and allobjects harder than the good raisins follow the soft roller 7 and dropping-onthe side ofpartition 24 on which the soft roller is positioned.

I "cannot herein give the proven theory whereby the foregoing results are accomconclusive, but through experiments which I have been making for a number of years I have iinade the'discovery that the functions of the soft or yielding'roller with the hard roller produces the results herein set forth.

My experimentshave shown that the hard roller can be constructed with smooth periphery as shown in Fig. .2, althoughbetter results are accomplished if the periphery of the hard roller has small corrugations therein. These corrugations can be lateral as shown in Fig. 3, or they canencircle the roller as shown in Fig. '1,

In my experiments I prefer -that the hard 'roller haveithe corrugationsencircling the periphery as shown in Fig. 1 for the reason that if the raisins should be sufficiently sticky to :adhere 'to the roller they can be more easily "released from the roller byvhavingthefingers 30 shown in Fig. 4 engage'the periphery of the roller and function as'za preferenceis not less than one inch thickness of such covering a hard roller is to be used'as la base to :carry the soft covering. It is herenoted thatza flexible covering for roller '7 which is held expanded. by pneumatic means can be substituted for the soft rubber.

The speedat'whichithe rollers should rotate' depends'upon the diameter of'the'rollers.

The travel-speed of the peripheries may be varied'from approximately two feet persec- I used rollers having equal diameters, al-

"though rollers of diiierent diameters vcan be used to advantage in cleaning some araisins. My discovery broadly is that when lIlSlIlS containingimatter -.1n which there are particles'harder th'a'nrthe raisins,'by'running them between two rollers, one of which has yielding periphery and the other a rigid periphery, the softfr aisins "will preferably followthesroller h'aving'the rigid periphery and the hardeiwparticles will followtheroll er having the yielding periphery.

Commercial raisins naturally have a soft flabby texture and are in condition to be processed by runningbetween-the rollers as describechbut-if the raisins should bebone dry, they can be-softened by steaming-or by placing them ina'room having high humid ity, which will condition them ing. 7

In my experimentit has been disclosed for processthat running the uncleaned raisins'between the rollers one time will frequentlyvseparate have constructed a machine illustrated in Fig. 3 in which three pairs of rollers are positioned one below the other, and the adjustments are madeso that the inaccuracies of the machine will dispose of-portionsof the raisins into the refuse compartment rather than to drop the stones and kindred substances into the cleaned raisin compartment. This can be done by adjusting the dividing partition so that it is slightly nearer to the hard roller than it is to the soft roller. I then run the deposits in the refuse compartment between another series of rollers. In Fig. 3.1 have shown an arrangement-of this character of three pairs of rollers positioned in a vertical stack. f

In said Fig. 3, an assembly of the rollers 40 is shown at the top, an assembly of rollers is shown in the center, and an assembly of rollers is shown at the bottom. Each set or assembly of .rollers has an adjustable partition 24 hereinbefore described. Each assembly has a chute 31, which chute is placed on the side of the partition on which the hard roller is positioned, each of said chutes being positioned on an incline downward from the partion and entering a common discharge pipe 32. The upper. pair of rollers indicated as 40 and the middle pair of rollers indicated as 50 have refuse chutes 35-positioned directly under the soft rollers. The refuse chutedirects the flow of stones, refuse and such raisins as may nothave been sorted out when passing through the first roller assembly to the top of -t-he roller assembly 50 which isdirectly underneath, and by similar mechanism and procedure the good raisins are separated from the mass and are conductedto the discharge pipe. The refuse and such raisins not yet separated from the mass are then conducted container 49. A hopper 51 is positioned above the top of assembly 40 which directs the flow of raisins between the rollers forming roller assemblytO.

,With proper skill being exercised in the adjustments, one, or a combination of two, roller assemblies will perform the work of sorting satisfactorily. Under other conditions a larger number than 3 of such roller assemblies may be desirable.

The means for rotating said rollers can be by a pulley or toothed wheel 44 attached to each hard. surfaced roller and aligned and a common belt or chain 4L1 adapted to engage each of said pulleys or wheels. The

roller having the soft periphery could be rotated by proximity to roller having the hard periphery. Other means may be used.

It is further noted that occasionally the raisins are very sticky and will adhere to the roller, The fingers 30 have been referred to as one means for cleaning the rollers, but the 'moistening of the rollers assists in keeping them elean.- As moistening rollers is old and no claim is herein made for such moistening, no. means for performing I the combination of a roller having a hard corrugated periphery and a roller having a soft yielding periphery adapted to rotate with the peripheries in close proximity so that the portion of the two peripheries nearest each other pass in a downward direction, and a partition having a diminished upper edge positioned so that said upper edge is aligned on an approximately vertical plane passing through a line midway between the two rollers, and below a line drawn from the center'of one roller to the center of the other. I v

2. In a device of the character described the combination ofa. roller having a pcriphery-of yielding material and a roller having a corrugated periphery ofrigid ma terial positioned adjacent to each other with the axes parallel, and adapted to be rotated WILLIAM sronnn. 

